7800GTX 512mb

[FarFarAway]

OK thanks to Al (hawkinsa21) for the linky, but here's my impressions of the 512mb Card from nvidia. This is a write-up taken from reviews on the net

Quick Note

I used Bit-Tech's results in this write-up as they do the "Best Playable" settings. I think that in this age of GPU's this is the best way to test. Its not all about benchmarks and numbers. Its about what YOU are going to get when YOU game.

Thanks to Bit-Tech for the great review as usual

1st Impressions

Well you can see that the 2-slot cooler is pretty damn HUGE

And I love the cooler on it. Copper base with Alu heatpipes. Exhaust out the back of the case too. I like it and think it should do well

The fan is comparible to the GTX (pretty good IMO)

The fan is pretty quiet; however, we did notice some strange humming coming from the video card. We have asked several other publications about this and there was a varied response - some have experienced it in some situations, but some haven't experienced it at all. We feel that it might be a sample specific problem related to power regulation, as we didn't hear anything of the sort when we reviewed the Leadtek PX7800 GTX TDH Extreme last month.

Clocking/Specs

Clocked at an awesome stock: 550/1700, with some headroom: this baby is hot-to-trot

Play Test (From Bit-Tech)

At the same settings that we found to be the highest-playable on both the ATI Radeon X1800XT 512MB and XFX 7800 GTX Extreme Gamer Edition, we found that the GeForce 7800 GTX 512MB was able to deliver a gaming experience that was in a completely different league. The average frame rate was 55 frames per second - some 13 frames per second higher than what we experienced on the Radeon X1800XT 512MB, while the minimum frame rate was a massive 28 frames per second, compared to the 13 frames per second minimum on the X1800XT.

Pretty awesome seeing as the x1800xt has only just come out

Quake 4

Quake 4 it pwns as you would think. 1 x Card with Ultra settings :yumyum:

In comparison to the Radeon X1800XT 512MB at 1600x1200 0xAA 8xAF Ultra Quality - the only setting where we found the Radeon X1800XT 512MB to be playable with Ultra Quality - we found that the GeForce 7800 GTX 512MB was around 35% faster than ATI's current flagship video card.

There are also sizeable performance gains over the two GeForce 7800 GTX 256MB video cards, too. We found that the additional clock speeds and frame buffer size enabled us to increase the quality from High Quality to Ultra Quality and still experience a smoother gaming experience than what was delivered by the XFX GeForce 7800 GTX Extreme Gamer Edition.

Simply awesome!

DoD:S

Once again a great playability settings achieved using "High Quality" driver settings

Even with high quality driver settings, we experienced a gaming experience that could not be matched by either ATI's Radeon X1800XT 512MB or the XFX GeForce 7800 GTX Extreme Gamer Edition, nevermind the reference GeForce 7800 GTX. The average frame rate was well above 60 frames per second, while the minimum was a very healthy 35 frames per second. The majority of the frames were rendered above 45 frames per second, too.

BF-2

Even ATI's Radeon X1800XT 512MB - which outclasses the two 256MB 7800 GTX's in the smoothness department in this particular title - could not match the gaming experience delivered by the GeForce 7800 GTX 512MB. We experienced an average frame rate of over 70 frames per second, and a minimum of 35 frames per second. That was the only point during our Battlefield 2 gameplay evaulation where the frame rate dropped below 40 frames per second, with the majority of frames being rendered well above 50 fps.

Smooth BF-2??? I think so!!

Conclusion

Even at this early stage, where we've only managed to complete about half of our normal gameplay evaluations, we think it is fairly safe to say that this video card is the fastest video card on the planet with no exception to that fact. In newer DirectX 9.0c titles that have come out over the last few weeks and months, we have seen that the GeForce 7800 GTX 512MB is considerably faster than the Radeon X1800XT 512MB.

Well looking at all of the benchies. What can you say other than this IS the fastest GPU to date. Its just immense.

The extra speed on the memory really does help.

One thing: Look at AnandTech's Benchmark of the dofferent between 256 and 512mb memory.

We were very interested in how the additional RAM affected game performance, so we underclocked our 7800 GTX 512 to 430/1.2 (core/mem) in order to see what (if any) difference we would find between the original 7800 GTX and the new model from framebuffer size alone. We will look at 2048x1536 both with and without AA as this is the resolution where any difference was most pronounced.

As we can see from the tests, the added RAM had no real impact on performance in any game (and a slightly negative impact in D3 and Q4).

So it goes to show that its the better memory and (therefore) the extra speed of the memory that makes a difference. Plus (of course) the increased clock speed.

This card is amazing. I may have to buy one.

Does anyone want to buy a 7800GTX 256? I'm serious!

Full review @ Bit-Tech

Settings Guide:

QA AA - Quality Adaptive Anti-Aliasing (ATI Radeon X1000 series);

PA AA - Performance Adaptive Anti-Aliasing (ATI Radeon X1000 series);

HQ AF - High Quality Anisotropic Filtering (ATI Radeon X1000 series).

TSS AA - Transparency SuperSampled Anti-Aliasing (NVIDIA GeForce 7 series);

TMS AA - Transparency MultiSampled Anti-Aliasing (NVIDIA GeForce 7 series);

HQ Driver - High Quality Driver Settings to remove noticeable texture shimmering in certain titles (NVIDIA)

 

[FarFarAway]

Update:

7800GTX 512's on Pre-Order at Overclockers UK

Prices:

BFG: £528inc VAT

XFX: £511inv VAT

Leadtek: £499inc VAT

Also @ SCAN

XFX: £511inc VAT

 

[SuB]

that overclockers link links to a reply lol

 

[FragTek]

The Leadtek looks to have a dandy price tag and is probably a sure bet for overclocking!

 

[FarFarAway]

Oops - linky fixed for ya

 

[bloodthirst]

The Leadtek looks to have a dandy price tag and is probably a sure bet for overclocking!

yup i agree there leadtek > bfg, xfx imo

 

[FarFarAway]

yup i agree there leadtek > bfg, xfx imo

Recently its gone: XFX>BFG~Leadtek...but we'll see. I may have a nice update on this for y'all soon

 

[PV5150]

WOOTAGE!!! This is an exciting time for end users, with kit available such as this, especially now that games such as FEAR are requiring larger amounts of dedicated RAM. I'm really looking at lashing out on one of these babies :worship:

 

[bloodthirst]

Recently its gone: XFX>BFG~Leadtek...but we'll see. I may have a nice update on this for y'all soon

leadtek make good vga's, id get it definantly get one alot cheaper and as frag said before lots of overclocking potential

 

[FarFarAway]

leadtek make good vga's, id get it definantly get one alot cheaper and as frag said before lots of overclocking potential

No doubt about it but XFX are the pwnage atm. The XFX is like £10 more than the leadtek where I may get it from so deffo XFX for me

 

[bloodthirst]

No doubt about it but XFX are the pwnage atm. The XFX is like £10 more than the leadtek where I may get it from so deffo XFX for me

yeah alright good stuff mate i cant wait to see someone waste there money on 2 of them and put them in SLi